Under his leadership and with his personal attention, some of the most accurate M72 and M118 Match ammunition was produced. Parsons was himself a distinguished rifleman and handloader. In the mid 1960s LtCol David Parsons was commanding officer at Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. A few very exceptional lots were below 2.0 inches. The accuracy specifications did not change over time but average lots of M118 Match showed 600-yard accuracy with mean radii around 2.4 inches. During the 1960s and 1970s, the round became more accurate as Lake City was able to refine the manufacturing process and product performance. Standardization of this round as the M118 Match cartridge occurred in the early 1960s and production was transferred to the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, MO. The final version, the T275E4, was re-designated XM118 as work continued at Frankford Arsenal. The T275 cartridge went through several design and load development iterations based on feedback from competitive rifle marksmen from AMU, Ft Benning, Georgia. Accuracy performance specifications for the T275 called for a maximum mean radius of 3.5 inches at 600 yards when fired from a Mann barrel in a machine rest. 30 M1 Ball bullet without the knurled cannelure. This bullet was essentially the 1926-vintage caliber. Instead it was loaded with the same 173-grain bullet as the Cal. No special bullet tailored to the 12-inch twist rate of 7.62mm barrels was used in the T275 cartridge. The first version was designated T275 and was an International Match load. The earliest work to develop a 7.62x51mm NATO match round started in the mid 1950s at Frankford Arsenal. 30 M72 Match round was standardized about the same time that 7.62x51mm NATO rifles were adopted. Standard issue match ammo did not appear again until the late 1950s when the Caliber.
30 M1 National Match Ball ammunition was made during the 1930s, the US Military made no match-grade ammo during the 1940s. The demands of wartime logistics, however, are characterized by large volumes of ordinary service-grade product, where abundance takes priority over quality.
The most accurate standard issue ammo is, of course, match ammunition intended for competitive marksmanship use. For the most part only the most accurate match-grade ammunition is selected and fired through the sniper’s weapon. Snipers by necessity pay particularly close attention to the quality and care of their rifle equipment and ammunition. It is not likely that this ammunition was capable of producing groups as small as 2 minutes of angle (MOA) in his rifle. 30 caliber M2 Ball ammunition made at the Denver Ordnance Plant. LtCol George states that he selected a good shooting lot of. In his book Shots Fired in Anger, LtCol John George recounts taking his personal Pre-War Winchester Model 70 into combat with the Japanese in the islands of the Pacific. Since the US issue sniper rifles of the period were nothing more than a service rifle fitted with a telescope, the sniper in the field was left to his own resourcefulness to select ammunition. 7.62MM M1 18 Long Range Evolution of the Ultimate Sniper Roundĭuring World War II there was no special ammunition issued for use by snipers.